


Thaw

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-30
Updated: 2007-10-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 20:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Being on the run you can’,t run from yourself.





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Wandering the  
>  wastelands, reborn (that’,s why Krycek has two arms) and confused, if you like  
> the guys that way, read on.

  
Author's notes: Wandering the  
wastelands, reborn (that’,s why Krycek has two arms) and confused, if you like  
the guys that way, read on.   


* * *

Thaw

## Thaw

### by Griva

##### [Story Headers]

  


Thaw 

Summary: Being on the run you can't run from yourself. Wandering the wastelands, reborn (that's why Krycek has two arms) and confused, if you like the guys that way, read on.   
Partially this was inspired by listening to the song Everybody Knows (by Concrete Blond) too many times. Genre: AU, happens at least six months after the Truth. Interchanging POVs. 

Rated R 

Beta'd by Jynn. 

* * *

February 2003 

/Somewhere between what used to be Kansas and Oklahoma/ 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

He hardly ever lets me take over driving for him lately. It is strange to me that while he still doesn't seem to trust me with a machine, at the very same time he apparently trusts me with his life. It's one of the things about Mulder I may never really understand. 

After all those weeks, the days have become like one. Something like a single long day spent with doing nothing but this ongoing driving and hunting for food and water and gas and survival, paused by occasional short rests. Mulder doesn't talk much lately. There's a grunt, whenever he agrees or disagrees so it's a matter of really listening to him to understand what he means. But I am getting good at it because I can decipher his grunts now. I have to. There is no-one but him and me now that Doggett took Scully and went back to what was left of California to protect them from the Super Soldiers. 

March will probably come and go without her coming back. Mulder expects Scully to reappear for April and I asked him how she'll find us then. But all he did was shrug and reply "She will." And he's right. She will find us somehow. I don't know how she does it, just like I don't know how she can identify wounds and diseases just by looking. But those are the secrets and the opportunities that make the Border Zone what it is. Between all the darkness in this world, there are but a few bright and shiny lights for Mulder, and Scully is one of those. Still is. Wasn't it always like that? 

So maybe she will be back with us in the spring when the Rebels are able to change quarters regularly again. But right now it's still freezing cold and it's snowing all the time. They are stuck in their winter camp, hiding away from the killers who are after them, while we are still on the go, still driving and searching for a way to win the Game and find some way out toward the North, to finally get out of here. And I have no idea how we are going to do that, out here in this nothingness. 

One of the things that have not been characteristic about Mulder within the past few months is that he hardly says ten sentences a day. More, if we suspect we are being followed, but this has not happened for a while. He will just go on driving and driving. He will tell me to get one of our blankets and to take a nap and he will watch over me, while I'm sleeping. But he won't tell me that he's cold and would like, for once, to sleep in a warm place, in front of a fire, not in the car, buried under layers of clothes and sheets, pressed up against me to share body heat. In the beginning I tried to persuade him that he should take more care of himself, since I'm used to hardship. But he acts like my sentinel because he believes he's someone they call "The One", someone who just cannot die, someone who thus has to protect whomever's around him. Even if it's only "me" who's around. I think he must be a bit nuts after that rising from the dead stunt. 

There's not a sound around us, just the one of the car, that ongoing humming of the car's engine with nothing to do but stare out the window. 

It's snowing, like it's been doing for two whole days now, and the sun has vanished behind clouds, leaving everything in a greyish twilight. It's freezing cold. The car's heater has been broken for a while now, and everything Mulder and I tried to make it work again was a failure, so all I can do is blow warm breath against my clasped hands. Out of the corner of my eyes I can see Mulder, giving me a short glance. 

Mulder shudders just slightly. Little puffs of air mark his shallow breathing. His cheeks are bright red, but his nose has a more white-ish colour and he looks just dead tired, as if he'll fall asleep behind the steering wheel any moment. He would never for once acknowledge a little weakness like feeling cold and tired. It's foolish and it makes me angry. 

Even more angry as I notice him unsuccessfully trying to hide a small grin when he sees me shudder. 

"Cold?" 

"You bet," I answer. "I hate that. Always have." 

"Why don't you get one of the blankets? Get warm. Take a nap." 

You bitch. Mulder lifts his brows mockingly and stares back at the street, trying to make me feel as if he isn't touched at all by the cold. He is slowing down the car now because it's snowing so hard we can hardly see anything but a veil made of white snow-flakes. We've been going in circles, aimlessly, for the last two weeks, for the snow was not so thick. At least the Hummer can still move. It's a Hummer I've stolen from the Would-be-Rebels, but Mulder really does not have to know that. The car holds together well, there is still gas when you know where to look and it's our last hope to get out of the Border Zone alive by April. We have three weeks to wander and survive. 

It feels as if it's getting even colder than it already is, too. I pull up my shoulders in a useless try to make my body as small as possible and fight the cold. 

"There was a house we passed," I say, "A bit down the street. It looked deserted." 

"So what?" he answers, without taking his eyes off the street. His lips are an angry blue color and the skin has split from the cold. Involuntarily my hand twitches and I have to fight to make it stay in my lap. It wants to touch the broken skin, take care of it. I wish we had something to treat it, something I could apply to them to make it better. If I don't do it, no-one will. And I want to do it, want to touch them, have always wanted to. 

"We could make a fire and spend the night there," I say. Then I press on, with arguments of more primitive comforts we've been deprived of, "It'll be warm. You can lie down, for a change. Come on, Mulder. We haven't been followed since we passed the ruined bridge. And that was two nights ago! We have to stop. It's getting worse and worse. We can still freeze to death in the car tomorrow." 

He grunts. 

I am quiet. 

He gives me a quizzical look. 

I just look back at him. 

It's a game between us, from what seems like immemorial times, even if neither of us would ever admit that. 

The game is him, grunting disapprovingly or saying something entirely annoyed and me, staring at him. He's frowning now. Me, still staring. The expression in his eyes changes then, but subtly, you would miss it if you don't watch very closely. He hates to give in in front of me, and he always tries to fight it. But he does give in to me when we play the game, and it does show in his eyes. He isn't as tough as he would like to make me, and himself, believe. He twists his lips now to show his disapproval. But his eyes are softening, just as they always do. 

"I am cold," I repeat. "And tired. And yes, I am so because I'm still human, not Modified and I won't back down on this one." 

"Oh for heaven's sake," he murmurs at last. "We don't have time for talking big breaks." But he slows down the car, then turns it and speeds back up the way we came. "Tell me where that thing was already." 

He sounds annoyed with me, but his eyes are soft. I look at him for another moment, then turn towards the side-window and look outside. 

Besides me, I can hear Mulder yawning. 

"Stop smirking, Krycek," he suddenly grunts. 

I decide to grin instead. Sometimes, I just like to annoy him big time. 

**XXX**

What I saw us passing is a wooden cabin. Very small, with only a sleeping and living room full of broken furniture and a fireside, and another room that must have been a kitchen once because there are still remains of a kitchen sink in there and some parts of the plumbing, full of ice now from the cold. But except that the cabin looks dry to me. 

Once inside, I shudder a bit and push the snow off my body, and besides me Mulder is doing the same. We both had drawn our weapons before moving inside. The cabin looked deserted from the outside, but you never know in the Border Zone. It could have been as good as full of other people trying to protect themselves from the snow. But there's noone in here but us. 

"Looks as if a fight happened," I say to Mulder, pointing at the smashed up interior. 

"Or a plundering," he answers. He walks around, touching the wooden walls and knocks on one. "It's still good. Hardly any moisture. Whoever lived here hasn't been gone for long." Mulder bends and touches the broken wooden chairs and the table, too. "Dry. Good for a fire," he adds then while looking at me with a half-smile. "Think you can get our things inside while I'm making us one?" 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

When you are going through hell, keep going, they say, but we could not drive through this blizzard, Krycek is right. The sky, the whole world is breaking. 

If there is any constant to life it is this, it breaks. And I say to myself that just because I am close to breaking, I stop and do what he says. 

I don't know if I would have made it that long on the run in the Border Zone without Alex Krycek. It isn't just that he's always watching my back. It's also the mere thought of having someone by your side, someone alive, someone to talk to. Someone to trust. 

In the Real World, Scully was that person to me. In here, in the Border Zone, absurdly so, but the only safe place for me to hide, it's Krycek. There are not enough Bounty Hunters to comb the vast deserted areas, and too much snow for the Government to organize a massive search of a couple of runaways. Without him, I'd probably be long dead, or even worse than that, I would have given up. 

I wonder sometimes if he knows that, if he has any idea how much I need him in here. I don't think so. It's almost perverse, how from a traitor he became my anchor. Talk about how drinking from one cracked cup and pissing against icy snow bonds you with your best enemy. 

I had been happy in that short time I had spent with Scully, hiding in the sunscalded vasts of the South-East. I could have stayed there, with some luck. I could have been lucky to find a job, in some small, sexless town; lucky, at not quite forty, to enjoy a simple life, unlike when I was in the FBI. I could have taken pleasure in that freedom. But with every passing day I felt less free. Or free, perhaps, in the wrong ways: free to buy a house, to buy into the life of houses. Free to lock myself behind a thin wooden door, a screen of sun-scorched trees, and forget the world, forget myself. Buried alive and alone, untouched, unscathed. I wanted a different kind of burial. 

This is what I wanted to say to Scully but what I did not say: bury me. Wrap me up in that blue shirt which, even now, is drawn up in thin folds under your arms; wrap me up in the dry, hot smell and pulse and stretched skin inside those folds. Hold me close and let me fall. 

But she left me. And I always knew she would. And if she did not, I would have. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

Mulder is breaking the last chair into pieces when I am finally done with taking our property inside. The fire is already burning and it's starting to get warm in the cabin. I leave the blankets in one corner of the room and turn to the food. 

"Peas or... beans, Mulder? What will it be?" I grin when he just grunts. 

Three weeks ago we found an untouched trunk with a load of can-food, down in a canyon. The driver was dead in the front seat, all that was left of him being a half-way skeletal body. God knows how long he had been there and why no-one ever searched for him. Mulder made me help him bury the driver in the frozen earth - why did we need to waste our time, I still wonder. Then we turned to the truck again. I haven't seen Mulder as happy as when we opened it up and found the cans for a long, long time. It had Mexican Beef Stew and Candied Pineapple, Chicken Noodle Soup and even something unusual as Nile Spicy Lentil soup. For a while we were living very well from what was in the cans but by now, everything that's left of it are peas and beans and LemonLime limonade. Mulder hates all three of them. I bite my tongue from asking if he'd sell his soul for a Supersized batch of french fries right now. 

I get a pot and open two cans, then start heating the food up over the open fire. 

A few feet beside me, Mulder is stacking up the wood. He is licking the broken skin of his lips with the tip of his tongue. For a moment, I stare at that, at the movement, the tongue, slipping out and touching. I stand up and walk over to him, before I really know what I'm doing. 

"It must hurt." 

He turns half on his heels and looks up at me, frowning. "Hurt?" 

"You lips." I lift my hand towards his face and for a brief moment my fingertips linger on the broken, white skin, that's now a bit wet from his saliva. "You are... you are licking them because of the cold. Licking just makes it worse. You should..." 

Briskly, he pushes my hand away, than he turns away from me and towards the wood-pile again, just staring at it. For another moment, my arm just hangs there in the air, looking ridiculous, before I let it go and push my hand into my pocket. 

"I'm not a baby, Krycek. Don't be ridiculous. I'm not someone you have to watch over like this. So back off." 

He smashes another piece of wood on the pile. The movement is harsh and angry. 

I feel his eyes on my back when I walk to the fire to have a look at the peas. I honestly didn't know what to think about Mulder sometimes. He'll act angry with me and yet I could feel his eyes following me any time I wasn't at his side. When we were together, he didn't seem comfortable unless he had at least one hand touching me in some way. I wondered if he realized that when he looked at me the expression on his face was possessive. I knew I wasn't imagining it. It didn't happen just recently. It happened all the time, from the very start. I could tell that Scully was seeing the same thing by the way she looked so worried every time he glanced my way. 

But lately, again and again, either I touch him out of nowhere, or he just suddenly snaps. Not his usual snapping, short, biting, harsh words he always does towards other people. It's not that disapproving "Now what, again?" biting he only uses on me, either, the one that comes and goes in seconds. It's different. He snaps at me and then he turns away from me as if he is unable to bear seeing my face any longer. His teeth press together then and sometimes his hands shake, too. I doubt it's from cold or being unwell. He never did that before. He used to jump at me and punch me. He never turned away from me and I don't know why he is doing it now. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

We eat side by side in front of the fire. Krycek hasn't talked to me since he touched me and I snapped, so there's just silence now except of the slight crackling of the fire and the sounds of our spoons on the plates. 

Outside, the pale sun has gone down. Not that it had made a difference before. The cabin's windows have been nailed up by the former inhabitants. But now, the light that was still falling through little cracks here and there is gone, too. It could even have been nice that way, if it weren't for the stillness. 

Out of the corner of my eyes, I cast Krycek a glance. Not that I cared if I hurt his feelings, but maybe he was right about my lip. He knows how bad neglected sores can get. He's staring into the fire, the spoon forgotten on his plate and I open my mouth to say something, to make this be over and forgotten, but he is first. He puts his plate down with a swift movement and is up and standing and looking down at me. An unusual glimmer in his dark eyes makes me uncomfortable. 

"Krycek, I..." I start, but he stops me with a shake of his head. 

"Where's the other one. That big pot, or whatever it was, we found?" 

"Outside in the car," I answer. 

"Would you like to wash?" he says with a slight smile. 

Frowning I just watch him putting on his anorak. "What? What are you up to, Krycek?" 

"Getting us some water. - We should take the possibility here. Who knows when we'll get another chance to get clean." 

He's out before I get to say another word. Now...how will I deal with this? That's how he always makes me feel, as if I've lost even if I attacked him first, in words or deeds. But right now it looked like Krycek`s way of offering me "peace". 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

I wonder sometimes how Krycek really feels about me. Damn, if I knew what he feels and what he doesn't. 

He has always been a strange man, to say the least. He's someone whom I loathed and despised, but I watched him transform. Maybe too much I had assumed wrongly and based my actions on the hasty emotional reaction. Eventually I decided that he had had a real mean streak as likely to hit the innocent as those he hated. I knew now he's been undercover for most of his life. It was crystal clear that though his life had depended on his despicable assignments, that they were not always of his own choice. 

Up until today, he still hasn't told me what is really waiting for him in the Real World, but I am getting an idea, and if that idea is right, defeating Them would at the same moment destroy Krycek. Because They virtually set up his death. They brought him back to life. They put him together and gave him an arm. There is still someone there who knows who Krycek was and what he owed Them. But here he is, with me and he was with me in the set-ups and helped me escape. I can't come up with an explanation of why everything suddenly changed for him. Because if we would defeat Them one day, it possibly wouldn't buy Krycek anything. Quite the opposite. Krycek was working on his selfinstalled image as a cold and unmoved semi-mercenary who is working for everyone as long as it is getting him money. And with Rebels, this image will backfire on him. They won't believe him... 

To me that redeems him. I had begun to look at him not as the man who had killed my father and tried to kill my partner, but as someone who had been under the influence of something far beyond his control. Alex Krycek was no longer an evil killer-- Alex Krycek was someone who had been manipulated by the Consortium, someone who could be likable and attractive and trusted. I couldn't really figure out Krycek after he first surfaced as a ghost at my trial, but then I realized it was a telepathic transmission. I hoped in vain, when on the run with Scully, that it wouldn't repeat. That I was just a bit nuts after what has happened. A blow in the head too many. 

When I met him, he was on his way of leaving the Border Zone-version of the United States to find his luck in South America. It was Scully who'd spotted him first in a long, loud and angry queue in Dallas, people frantic to fly south, east...anywhere but not north where They were leaving their ships. At first, I forced him to stay with me (at least as much as one can "force" Krycek to do anything), and tell me how he ended up alive and running instead of dead and rotting. And reequipped with a new limb! His story was so similar to mine and so fantastic as only me, who has been dead once, could understand and believe. Old pal Shakespear was wrong: not only cowards died many times before their deaths. But then the Bard had no luck to learn who They were. 

But then Krycek was very free to leave... and he didn't. We met Doggett and a small gang of Rebels in the Nevada desert and they took to California. I knew They were looking for me, and whatever they needed, I'd better be dead before they found me. But I did not want to die, now more than any time before because the Invasion has finally happened and if I really was The One, I could figure out how to stop it. But Krycek, who always knew better where to run, told me the escape was in the Border Zone. Since then he stayed with me and he helps me to go on. 

Is he just with me because I'm that "One"? Is that why he is protecting me? Or is it because he likes me? Is he with me because he believes in the fight and because he is my friend? And if that's the case, why _did_ he suddenly start believing in it? 

What is that thing between us that binds us together? 

Is it the greater cause or is it the friendship? Or neither. Maybe there is something worse for me in store. But if so, Krycek could have betrayed me and sold me out twenty times over already during our trip. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

Mulder had put more wood onto the fire to heat it up a bit when I finally return with the bigger pot, filled with white, cold snow. I bring cold air with me inside and some more snow that slowly moves from my hair and shoulders and shoes down to the ground of the cabin where it turns into little puddles of water immediately. 

"Damn, it's cold out there," I shudder. "Freezing. But I've got snow, so we can get warm water and we can wash. I stink." 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

It may be strange, but I like his smell. It's post-apocalyptic Krycek-smell. Sweat, dirt, oil, the natural smell of his skin... all in all, a lot of things mixing together into `him`. 

Sometimes, when we sleep in the car together, under the blankets, I turn my face towards him on purpose, and I sniff him. 

The first time it happened it was an accident, an accidental turning towards him that lead to my face being pressed against his chest. The things I felt that very first time I smelled him as strongly as then was one of the most terrifying things to ever happen to me; the heat that went through my whole body, the warmth of feeling safe. 

Since that first time I did it again and again and every time I did it, I came to like his smell a little bit more. 

"You stink, too, by the way", Krycek grins. His voice makes me snap out of staring at him and I give him a low half-laugh. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

I'm making the so called beds ready while Mulder places the pot over the fire. He just stays there, kneeing, and watches the snow slowly turn into water. As if it's some miracle. His back is to me, so he can't watch me while I make the beds. 

I've got them around ten feet away from each other, giving me, as well as Mulder, more free room than we have had for weeks in the car. I figured Mulder would like that. For a second, I stare at the two bed-rolls, then I turn give Mulder a look from askance. He is still not looking at me, but instead has his flat hand over the water in the pot, testing the heat of it that way. 

After a moment of thinking, I bend down and pull my own bed-roll nearer to his, just a few feet, but enough to make me wonder again about what I'm actually _doing_ here. I frown, then cast another glance over to Mulder's form in front of the fire. 

He has turned on his heels and is soundlessly looking at me. For another moment, there is just silence. Then I just can't bear him stretching it. "What are you waiting for, your next life? Who goes? You first or me?" I look back at him, waiting for Mulder to just snap at me or hit me just because he thinks he has the right and honestly, this was not quite a smart joke I've just made about his next life. 

In the end, I don't wait for him to finally come out of his motionless staring and answer, but instead I start stripping out of my clothes without another word. Who's faster, gets there first. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

Krycek isn't taller than I am. It's hard to be taller than me, my height is one of my advantages. We are nearly of the same height, but recently he _looks_ bigger than me. His shoulders are broader, just like his chest, there are more muscles on his body, arms and the legs than back in the careless and easy years of him being a scum sucking bastard to me. His moves, when he runs or is just standing, are smooth and controlled. He is strong, apparently stronger than me, his clothes are dark and much more military-like than mine and all of that "forms" his body into something that screams "soldier". 

He might have made a perfect Bounty Hunter. He's been with Them. He knows all their secrets. Maybe he's using me again, like I was set up. Like he is just waiting. Like he knows all along how it will end... 

I force back the paranoia. If I go on like this, I will feel the need to gut him in his sleep tonite. He looks dangerous in his own kind of way, I hasten to conclude to justify his outlook. 

His masculinity was so natural, with no pretentiousness. Now that he is naked... naked he still looks strong and firm, but also full of white skin. Soft skin, I suppose. We haven't been out of our clothes for days, his skin has been unmarked by sun for even longer. 

Our hands have touched on occasion whenever we passed something from one to the other. Brief touches and accidental ones. But I found out that his hands are soft on their backs that way. I suppose the rest of his skin is as soft as that. Maybe softer. 

He cleans his body fast and efficient, like he does everything, and after only moments, the warm water besides his feet starts turning greyish from the dirt coming off his body. 

I don't want to watch him there, in front of the fire, shed of all of his clothes. I feel like a voyeur. But he has his back to me, so there is nothing that could force me to look away, except of my own bad conscience maybe. 

I'm glad right now, that we just have this one big pot and by that, only enough water for one of us at a time. We don't have to wash together that way. The thought of that makes me shudder in the way as if I hurt my elbow. You know, those disgusting numbing impulses. Instead, I pretend to check the thickness of the bed rolls while he stands there with a cloth in his hand, scrubbing over that supposedly soft skin of his naked legs, and still I watch him. I watch him. 

I am not sure when this started to get out of hand. Maybe when he became the only one for me to trust or maybe it was when the cold in this world wasn't only attacking me from the outside anymore but from the inside, too, and the need for human touch started to become unbearable. Scully made it clear when we were in Nevada that she wanted to go somewhere where it's warm and has more food and some pretense of "normality" because the Border Zone made a buffer between Their East and Rebel West. But I could not follow her because ever since the trial and my escape I was a pariah for the Rebels too. They did not need the One who had no idea how to bring back the old world order. They needed a leader who knew how to inspire and who will tell them that theirs was the right cause. And they told me they could tell by my face I have been dead before. They would never trust me... 

I stare at him, at his shoulders, how they move with him when he bends over to wash his arms, from his shoulder-blades down to the deep knotted scar (a souvenir from Russia) above his left elbow, his fingers, how they stretch and turn and just _move_ , how the curve of his shoulders turns into his back and down even more...down and down to the lines of his bottom, the smooth curve, full of creamy white skin, ending in his strong legs and his feet. Even his scars look enticing now, and I know I think of his sex, and I don't care if his is the same as mine. 

It hurts to think of myself as that kind of a person, someone who would even go after his only and somehow best enemy just because of loneliness and cold. To come-on to him like that, I could not predict what Krycek's reaction would be. It could be something that could destroy everything we have, or maybe I am already doing that exactly...destroying what we have by not doing anything. 

But Lord, how I crave the feeling of hot water on my skin. 

**XXX**

I wait until Krycek has put most of his clothes back on, before I get the pot, take it outside and fill it with new snow for myself. I don't let him do it as he might catch a severe cold. His indecently clear face is creased by a smirk. Consider it a pay back that I care too, Krycek. Before I left, one look at his face told me that Krycek is immensely relieved from the tension he's been carrying around for days now. The tiredness is still there, more obvious than ever, but the lines around his eyes and mouth have lessened a bit. 

After putting the pot back on the fire, I turn to Krycek. He is standing in front of one of the windows, gazing out through one of the small cracks, his gun in hand. 

"I take the first watch, I'm not feeling very sleepy," I say, before he offers his assistance. With my thoughts buzzing as angry bees in my head and heavy unrest in my southern region, I don't think sleeping by his side will be a good idea. 

His look has something between amusement and annoyance in it when he answers, "You are my hero." 

But to my relief, he doesn't start arguing or teasing me, he just leans his gun against the wall right beside his bed-roll and lies down on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes stay half-closed. But I can see that he has to fight to not fall asleep right away. 

I get naked and start washing as fast as I can, my back turned to Krycek. I hope he's too relaxed after the washing he won't be studying my assets. The water isn't really hot, just lukewarm, but I don't want to wait any longer, because this is better than anything we were having for a long, long time. 

I was in similar situations like this in the real world, back during our Agent days, stuck somewhere, wearing the same clothes for days, while trapped or on a very important field trip. After a while they start to smell, then they stain, and in the end, they are filthy and you want nothing more but to burn them and scrub your body until your skin is red and scratchy. This is how I feel most of the time in the Border Zone. 

I rub my skin hard and fast, up and down my legs, up and down and up again, until the skin really looks red and it burns like hell. But in the end I feel clean, cleaner than I have for a long time. I even find it acceptable to get back into my old clothes. 

When I look back at Krycek, he has one of his arms bent over his eyes and from out of his slightly open mouth, his breathing is deep and even. He is finally sleeping. Apparently he is not as interested in my naked butt as I was in his. What a blow to my self-assuredness. 

I take my place at the window, gun in hand, and start my watch. 

**XXX**  
I had intended to let Krycek sleep through the night and take over his watch, too, but his inner clock can't be cheated. No matter how tired he is, he always wakes up in the middle of the night, taps me on the shoulder and nods towards the bed-roll, so I can sleep a while. He is like clock-work. This night is no different, only that he caught what I was intending to do somehow, for he just smirks at me when he points at my bed-roll with his thumb and whispers, 

"Nice try, Mulder. Now go to sleep. You've been driving for the whole day, remember?" 

It's useless to try arguing with Krycek about this, and there is no more reasons for bravado and even if it is just because he is right. I am deadly tired, too, suddenly, as if I haven't slept for days. I fall asleep in a matter of seconds. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

The morning is warmer, instead of cold and freezing as usual. I can't remember a morning I felt as good and rested as I do on this one, in a long time. Only now do I realize I must have fucked up - fallen asleep on my watch. Sleepily, I stretch myself and refuse to open my eyes at first and admit my defeat that would allow Mulder to look down upon me for days to come, until a boot hits me in the side. Not that much as to hurt me, but enough to make me sit up with a start. 

"Rise and shine, Krycek." His voice is grumpy and sounds pissed off. This time he has the right. I remember now that it was my cocky initiative to not let him take my night watch. What a fuck up, Krycek! 

I push the bed roll away and look up at him. I don't know what to say. Sorry won't cut it. But it seems that Mulder is in no hurry to berate me. He is walking around in the cabin, from one end of it to the other and back again, now and then sticking the end of his gun into the burning fire with an angry twist of his arm. It must be something awfully important troubling him if it takes his mind off my misdeed. 

"What is it?" 

"We are snowed in," he grunts. "The snow was falling all through the night, the temperature has dropped a few degrees more, and there's a storm outside." No wonder he is pissed. 

"That means we are staying here for another day?" 

"At least. I wouldn't put my hopes that high that we are getting out of here tomorrow. We are fucking stuck." 

I stand up and walk to the nailed up windows. Through one of the cracks, I can look outside. All I see is white snow, whirling around in the storm. Icy cold comes through the crack and pushes against my faces, taking my breath away. 

"But at least we are stuck in here and not outside somewhere in the car," Mulder keeps on, a bit more softly now. "We would be dead by now if we hadn't stopped at the cabin." 

I smile more to myself than to him. The last sentence will be the only thing coming from Mulder that I was right about staying here. It's okay for me. I know by now how to read between Mulder's lines. 

I turn to him. "So now we are just waiting till it's over?" 

"Yeah." 

He starts pacing again. "Fuck it. We can't afford to stay at one place for too long." 

"I don't think anyone will search for us here. We are in the middle of nowhere." 

"You sound as if you know you can never know with Them," he frowns. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

I was born into the wrong religion. The wrong family. An all around bad situation. My life's been interesting, I guess. It wasn't good, but it could have been worse. Saying it was horrible and complaining about it, that accomplishes nothing. And it wouldn't fix anything or make it better. So I didn't complain. And still I don't. I've found ways to grieve and to smile, to live and to die, in a metaphorical sense, of course. 

I have been trained well for the purpose I was meant to serve. Death had always escaped me--or rather--I had always escaped it. I wasn't afraid of it, just unable to follow through with crossing over. 

And then... it happened. 

FBI's parking lot, 2002. 

I thought I was dead. 

They say, if it comes to death, every person goes through different stages of emotion. 

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. 

Not in this specific order... but you are supposed to go through all of it, one way or the other, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. 

So accepting Survival was a shock of some sorts. I was dead. And then I wasn't. Death and Rebirth in a matter of moments. They made it so. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

"Tell me about him," I say. For a moment, Mulder stops staring at the nailed boards where the window used to be and looks at me. 

He knows exactly whom I am talking about, but he answers anyway: "Him?" 

just to drag out the moments until he has to think about the answer. 

"Your _boy_. William....Are you still "talking" to him? I haven't seen you doing it lately." 

I'm on very dangerous grounds here. Mulder could go bombastic when I mentioned his (or so he believes William was his) son with whom he's lost any contact while still on the run with Scully. They said William was with his foster parents while They erased Philadelphia just to prove to our Government They could. But Mulder claimed once to Scully he could hear William. That he was with Them as the son of the One. I think Mulder just keeps hearing the voice because that's what makes him think he's the One. But I must know better. I must know what his abilities are. Because I suspected that what he actually thought he heard, was not William in any human form. 

"How are you doing that?" he answers. "Seeing me `talk` to him. How do you notice?" 

"Your face, Mulder. Can't keep this secret to itself." He doesn't look at me. "You`re just too honest. Too open. Too...attached when you are doing it." 

Mulder lies on the bed-roll, his arms crossed behind his head and closes his eyes. Apparently he wants to say something entirely different. But what comes out is: "And here I thought I had this big poker face." 

Because I don't know how to react to this sudden sincerity I start laughing loudly, then just keep chuckling to myself even when I par, "You didn't answer my question." 

"What was the question?" he turns to my side and toward my direction, still not looking, still keeping his eyes closed. I can feel his presence. Even if he wouldn't say a word, keep very still and wouldn't even breathe... I would still feel him around me. I always would. 

"Don't start shitting the bullshitter, Mulder." 

For a long while, he does not say a word. 

"No", he whispers finally. "No I don't. - I stopped doing that some time ago. I don't think...he was Reborn." 

...and for the better, I make myself swallow a sigh of relief. 

We do not talk for hours afterwards. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

Thinking about it, Death and Rebirth happened to me not just once, but two times. 

I "died" and came back in the parking lot. I "died" and came back when they sat me on that chair in that room and made me listen to that mechanical voice and made me watch that movie. What They did to me and how. And WHO did that. They killed me in the Real World and brought me back in the Border Zone. They showed me the few humans who were still searching for escape in the Border Zone. They showed me North Texas and told me they needed him back. Mulder, that was. But they had a slim chance he'd ever let himself be caught because he could sense Them in a weird way. And then there was the Border Zone where he'd rather perish then surrender. I had an option to become "spare parts" as They bluntly put it, or go after him and keep track of his movement. Old history repeating. 

They let me go because with Them was a thick chance "I" would come back because the future was with Them and I was a survivor. 

I went into Stages of Acceptance again. Death and Rebirth again. An Initiation. The old life dies. The new life starts, and the new life includes Fox Mulder and hardly anything else. Everything changes. I do, too. 

I'm not making any sense. 

And who am I talking to anyway? 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

They were old nightmares, familiar faces, familiar voices. I had them nearly every night since I stopped hearing William. Had them nearly every night for over a year. Sometimes the details were very specific. Sometimes I could see the faces, hear the voices, feel the blows, taste the blood. And it would be like I was there again. I could feel myself slipping into near unconsciousness. I could hear those voices distort, see the faces start to swim. And then... I would wake up at that point. I would wake up with my arms trying to wrap around myself, trying to hold myself. 

But sometimes there were no details. I would just be alone in a room that echoed. A faucet dripped and every drip of the water from that faucet would sound like an explosion. And I would stand there with my ears covered. Then it would start... The feeling of being trapped. I would try the doors. They wouldn't open. And the windows would suddenly be gone. I would stand there and shake, tears of frustration--and terror--running down my face. I just wanted to run, wanted to get away--but there was nowhere to run, no way to escape. I was trapped. 

I would wake up from those dreams, shaking, my body nearly convulsing with fear. Those were the bad ones. The ones with the details I could deal with. They were concrete. I knew the faces, remembered the incident. It was real and focused and I could put it away once I woke up, after a little while. But these... they were just generalized fear and unbearable frustration. They pumped me full of all the adrenaline needed for the fight or flight response--and then held me captive, wouldn't let me run, wouldn't let me escape. There was nothing I could do. Everywhere I turned there was a blank wall, a locked door, no way out. THESE stayed with me long after I woke up. THESE dosed me with a sense of anxiety that I couldn't quite shake. 

You are dreaming. you are dreaming. you are dreaming. wake up. wake up. wake up. wake 

Up. 

I sit with a start, and immediately start rubbing my eyes hard to not have to acknowledge their harsh burning. 

"Glad you are back, sleepyhead." Krycek's bemused voice. 

I sound hoarse when I answer. Hoarse and like an old man. "I didn't sleep that long." 

"No, you didn't." Krycek is still bemused and still sitting by the window, with his gun in hand. "Maybe only an hour." 

"Sorry."  
"For not sleeping that long? - Boy, Mulder, you are not _that_ big of a pain in the ass." 

"For falling asleep in the first place." "It's not as if I needed your help to write a manifesto or something. You look like crap. Another bad dream?" 

"Yeah." 

I nod. No further questions, no further mentioning of the subject. He is dreaming bad, too, sometimes. Tosses and turns in the car, whimpers, kicks me in the leg and wakes me up that way in the middle of the night. He knows he is doing it. He knows that I know. But we are not talking about it, because he wouldn't want to. Wouldn't want to show me any weaknesses. So I am not discussing his dreams and he is not discussing mine. He wouldn't want to know that I'm dreaming about him dying again anyway. 

"You hungry, Krycek?" I say after a long yawn. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

We eat in silence, but this time it's a friendly silence, without the angry undertone from the day before. The aggressiveness that had been around Mulder lately is gone suddenly, and my own impulse to touch him, to watch him, is buried in the deepest depths of my conscience. 

We've shared the last bag of black tea. Mulder's eyes, all this time, even when he was drinking, never left mine. His pupils were enormous, radiantly empty, as if I could curl up inside them. I noticed he was checking me out yesterday. Not that I have eyes on my back, but the intuition never failed me. And I can't say I wasn't interested in his assets. But before now it was so impossible to think that me and him could exchange anything but blows or smartass comebacks, that I have never bothered, not even in my rare wet dreams. 

He was a little softer than I had believed, not gaunt, even after the alien experiments and fat-burning sicknesses, lacking hard edges or sharp cuts. His muscles were gently defined; their braided, sculpted lengths slim but lush. He looked...nice. Clean, athletic, still retaining the essence of a youthful form. I could have gratefully worshipped and tortured his stubborn ass for hours on end. Now THAT was an inappropriate image when I tried to stay as far from fraternization with Mulder as possible. It was easy to be around him again, everything is normal. Like it had been in the past, in those first weeks after we met and had gotten over then the initial discomfort around each other. 

Mulder is giving me a half-annoyed look over his plate. "God, I hate these fucking peas." 

"As soon as it stops snowing _you_ can go out there and find us a rabbit or whatever and shoot the damn thing so we can eat it," I offer. 

"You want _me_ to spend a bullet on something to eat?" Mulder's half-way laughing at me. Because I'm the same man who once told him that as long as I have an 80 percent chance of survival, right now I'd rather kill someone with my hands so that I don't have to spend a bullet. Bullets are something we can't find in the Border Zone. 

I'm grinning now. "Fuck yeah. In a second and without a second thought actually, wouldn't you?" 

"You are such a predictable, murderous asshole, Krycek!" 

"Ah. And Thy name is Controversy, Mulder. And that's why I adored you so much from the first glance." 

The moment the words are out, he stops chewing on his peas. Damn, I must have crossed the invisible line. I reminded him of the past long gone. That once I already told him something like that. That I looked up to him. That he was a trendsetter. I told him that to rub his face in the dirt afterwards. 

I watch him take a deep breath, and every humor goes out of his face. Mulder puts his plate down on the ground and stares at it for a long while and I realize that out of whatever reason, something strange and serious is going to happen right now. 

"Look", he whispers without looking at me. "In the real world... I spent every waking moment trying to get the truth out of people or trying to make them see the truth... " 

I audibly catch my breath. The peas are rolling around on the plate I'm balancing on my knees. I should put it down, put I can't. I can't move. 

"..and poof, this world is gone! Now I'm the same like you - a freak, I have no authority any more. I didn't even realize I didn't until I had to run," he let's go a harsh, hard laugh. "That's how they see me now. They don't trust me. They tell me "I can see in your face that you've been DEAD before. How can we believe you are not part of Them?" 

Desperate, he jumps up. The gun at his side falls to the ground with a crash and he starts walking from one end of the room to the other, and back to me again, talking all the way. 

"I never planned to spend my life running. Running and alone, not what I wanted for my life, but it's what what my life has become. I'm a fucking fugitive. Almost a criminal. I've become like _YOU_ , and for allowing that I'd have shot myself in the head just a few years ago!" With a swift movement of his feet, he sends his plate full of not-eaten peas flying into the burning fire. 

"I don't know how to deal with that, and you make every damn effort to remind me thereof," he whispers. Then he grabs his gun and walks over to the door. "I'll get us something to eat." 

He's gone before I can say a word. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

I rushed back into the snow. The snow swirled and curled and danced in front of my eyes like an over-programmed computer screen saver. 

I will never forget how happy she looked when Scully showed me William's baby shower. The way she smiled and used to make me smile. How she could do that with a single word. I will never forget the plans she made. She is with John now and I know he will take good care of her. Better than I am capable of. 

The truth is that she never really understood me. I loved her, which she never seemed to believe. We weren't destined for a lifetime together, to set up a home or share banking accounts. We were destined for exactly what happened. And it hurts to think that deep inside I have long ago given Scully up. Longer than I have even realized myself. And how easy it was actually. Almost as easy as to admit why I am with Krycek. 

Because he is like me now. And I didn't think about him. Just felt him, reacted to him. I could have run into the opposite direction when we met, If I had thought about him, could have run straight away. But then, maybe not. I must be looking for self-destruction now -- I didn't want to recognize it as that, but that's what it IS. I've always been too weak to eat my own gun. And I wanted now was for things to end, but could not go and surrender, could not do it on my own will. And here is Krycek, self-destruction in a bottle, and he dispensed it freely. Well, actually, with Krycek nothing was free. Everything had a price. And I was so willing to pay it. 

I left my coat in the cabin. Hot and fuming, I will get pulmonary fever here within moments. And then there would be an end to this all, the darkness without end. And the darkness looked so cool and comforting. I wanted to just surround myself with it, let it block out all the vestige of light that remained in me. Not much left I wanted to see anyway. 

I close my eyes, the icy needles pricking my face. I can't cry, because honestly, I can't blame anyone but me for where I am. 

And what I want. 

I wonder how I knew. I wonder how I knew he was like anti-matter. He was like the other end of a magnet, drawing me to him. Should have turned around. Should have let that pull reverse and push me away. Would have been better. 

Or would it? Not so sure, really. I would have found some other means, I suppose. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

The moment Mulder comes back in, I can say he is killing himself inside for the outbreak. He doesn't say anything at first and doesn't really look at me. He just gives me an already skinned and still damp rabbit he has shoved on a stick, then goes back outside and cleans his bloodied hands in the white snow. I am impressed. I did not know he was a hunter. 

"It was... neurotic, the outburst. I was actually planning to be calm and really dignified when I tell you that I don't know where I belong any more." 

I get the stick to stay put after a moment, so that the rabbit is right over the fire and not burning, then turn around to look up at him. 

"It's okay." It's like Mulder has lost something fundamental - he does not know what his Truth is any more. But since I can't help him to redefine himself, I prefer a neutral "okay". 

"No. No, it's not. You know about what was in the past, so... it should be...matter of fact. But then I still get...`emotional`. You've got a right to know what keeps me in this world and what I'm running from. That I'm...in constant conflict. That I don't know where we are going. That maybe I don't want to return to Scully or anyone there any more. In here I've got some kind of future, Krycek. Even if it has no purpose, just running. Out there...I'm nothing but a fucked up Lazarus who used to be a flake." 

"I figured you thought something like that." I stand up and come up right in front of him, right in front of his face. But he is not moving away, and so I am not either. 

"Yes... but I wanted you to _know_." 

"Why?" 

Still neither of us moves. I make a fist to keep my hands from touching him. "Because I want us to be honest. I need us to be. Because you are the only one I have around. I can't...go on if I don't trust you. Damn, I don't even know HOW to go on with myself." 

"What about Scully? Can't she help?" I whisper. Damn, what else can I say? I can't make him go back, I can only watch and follow him. And guard him. From himself, among many other things. 

"Scully... is a friend. But she is far away now. She might not be with me, but she won't give me up. But that...that's not what important now!" 

"What is important, Mulder? And what am I then? What must "I" be so that we go on?" 

I look down when I feel his hand on me, brushing over my belly, very softly. When I look up, he is, too, so that we are staring into each other's faces again. 

"I still keep on wondering what can you be...tovarisch," his voice falters. 

He moves forward hesitantly and kisses me half-way on my lips and half-way on my cheek very carefully and gently. But before he can try to back away I grab his face and turn him back to me to kiss him on the mouth. Not gently at all. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

Back before the Invasion, in the years that seem almost unreal now, everything always came easy for me. Genetics gave me my looks, strength, abilities and intelligence. By the time I was ten, I'd already figured out what I was good at. I'd try new things for the challenge, but if I wasn't getting them or failed, I wouldn't try again. It wasn't out of any sense of fear or failure, but if I wasn't good at them, why bother. Basically, my life was ruled by a principle: if something bothers you and you can't do anything, ignore it. It will go away. Or scare it. 

When I was six years old I found a litter of kittens. I was angry and confused. I was frustrated and didn't know how to deal with my feelings. I played with those kittens until they were old enough to learn to run, a vicious game of pulling their tails and blowing in their ears. I taught them to be afraid. I taught them not to trust people, only themselves. If I had to beg for mercy to stay alive, so did they. This was hell. They were puppets. I was God. 

I slept in the basement from the time I was nine until I was about 14. I had a nest in the corner, fabricated out of old jackets and a cardboard refrigerator box my father refused to throw out. The only way to get in was to squeeze in from behind the furnace; the front was barricaded in by years of clutter. If he couldn't find me, he couldn't hurt me. Half the time he was too drunk to look. 

The bruises on my mother were taboo. We didn't ask, she didn't tell. We heard, though. Tears, screams. Glass shattering across paper-thin walls. Bodies being flung across rooms. I had more important things to concentrate on. Long division for example. Ignore it. It will go away. 

This is the basic idea that I've ingrained in myself from that day. 

Looking at it from today's POV, I have no idea how I even survived as a soldier the last few years before I came to the Border Zone. Maybe luck had much to do with it. Or maybe it was fate. 

Fate. I read once, someone famous saying that fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat. 

How DAMN appropriate, Mulder. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

"Alex," I whisper. Beckon. 

I bent toward him, toward the sharp line of his jaw, and I opened my mouth, ready for stubble and bone. To start with a kiss: this is the oldest ceremony. I placed my hands on his shoulders. Something in me tensed--something, or lots of things. Was there, I found myself thinking, some silver string of nerve linking my mouth to my heart? I think I had forgotten it was there. 

His hands were under my shirt, thumbs pressing and rubbing the skin, brushing over my nipples. I was arching my back and push my hips against him and I can feel Krycek pushing back at me. And he was laughing down at me, low in the back of his throat, and he was smiling a bit, so I came up with my head and kissed him again until I could feel the smile vanishing off his face. 

My hands...drawing fast circles on his back, as if not knowing where to touch first and I could feel his muscles moving with the movements of his fingers on my naked skin. 

Xxx  
(Krycek's POV) 

My blind hands stumbled inside his sweater, than under the shirt, clutched the tangle of hair around his navel; I pressed my left thumb into one of his ribs and heard him moan. He grabbed my hair and pulled my face up to his, and when his mouth closed on mine I swear I thought I was all tongue and teeth, pulsing muscle and resistant bone: my breath came faster; I wanted more. 

I tried to push his shirt up over his head, but it was too tight; I tore at the buttons. He let me tear at them, let me wrestle the sleeves from his arms. I inhaled him right where worn cotton sliced across his sternum. He smelled like fall: brown grass, dead leaves, smoke in the air. My tongue left a trail across that landscape. There were pieces of him--stray hairs, scattered leaves--stuck to my tongue. 

He didn't let me get farther than that frayed edge. It was a quick revolution, and before I knew what was happening, I was on my back, and hey, that was his tongue, not mine, clattering around in my mouth, and that was his hand sliding down under my ass, and my hand was fluttering around his waist, not uncertain so much as in suspense. 

I was twisting us around, feet tangled together and pushed my groin hard against his, grinding down, sounds from the back of my throat this time. Mulder was gasping. He pushed me up a bit and his hands left my body and started working on the zipper of his pants, trying to get it down. He was shaking and the zipper isn't giving way one bit. 

He ground his dick through two layers of cloth against the inside of my thigh, up over my belly, back down again. I pulled him even closer, if that was possible, and my hands slid beneath the denim, found another fragile layer of fabric drawn tight over his ass. I grabbed what I could. 

We weren't talking, but suddenly I felt his throat hum beneath my mouth and he was, I'm sure of it, speaking into me, talking through my mouth, and I pulled back and looked at him and said, "What?" 

He breathed. "Now." 

You can imagine how I tried to unbutton his fly, how I wanted nothing between us but our skin slick with sweat and whatever I could smear from my mouth, whatever my dick would gladly drool. You can imagine how I wanted to say no and then say yes, to feel the slide of elastic down my hips and the snap of latex and then, with the same slowness, the same vehemence of his hand, to feel him open my hole with his cock, to feel his mouth suck me in and choke out that little death rattle, straight into the clenched center out of which the rest of me spirals. You can imagine how I wanted to lick my sperm from his skin. 

This is what happened instead: he held our hips absolutely still, one hand at the small of my back, the other beneath my ass. We were frozen like that, on the brink, immobilized. He would not let us move. Our cocks were throbbing; our breathing did not get any slower. Mulder locked his eyes on mine; he bit my lip; he shoved his tongue in as far as it would go. And when he stammered, " _come on_ ", and he drove his crotch into mine, holding me so tight I could never come loose, his eyes lost their focus, and his throat caught, and in that instant his dick heaved up inside his pants, and I felt something shoot out of him, and I scraped my teeth against his cheek, and I came. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

It could have been called a universal disgrace of me shooting my spunk in my pants, if Krycek did not land there with me, just a two-count later... 

I moved back up his body after we came and pressed my lips to his, kissing him fiercely, rubbing myself against him until he pushed both of us to our side. 

"Open your eyes...open your eyes...Alex." 

I was face to face with him. Sweat was all over his face, sticking his hair together and plastering it to his brows. And his eyes...dark and deep and again, I moved towards him and kiss him on the mouth. But this time, my eyes stayed open, and then I followed his gaze down our bodies to his hand between both of our cocks. 

"Mulder... Now we need to go out for snow and wash AGAIN!" Krycek declared with fake awe. 

I could only grin and agree. Maybe it was not all about self-destruction after all. 

Xxx  
(Krycek's POV) 

Naked skin, finally. And the smell. Better than in the car when pressed up against him. Much, much better. 

"The rabbit is burned", I whisper. Lying on my stomach, I watch the dark smoke that is drafting through the room. Mulder's hand is on my back, his thumb lazily stroking my skin. Let myself tune into the frequency that vibrated through Mulder's hands to the core of me that had never forgotten. That's why I never acknowledged that could happen. Too good. Too dangerous. An addiction waiting to happen. 

"Fuck," he says, rubbing his face, and tells me something I really don't want to know. He says it softly--I have to lean over to hear him. His eyes watch my lips, and I watch his eyes, then his crotch. 

"Fuck the rabbit", he repeats before he replaces his finger with his mouth and slowly starts licking. I squirm into the bed roll, but at the same time, have to chuckle. 

"Fuck the rabbit? You're my spark," I say. 

"Come closer," Mulder says, curling against the side of my body. 

More little licks and kisses and his fingers over my body to turn me around and on my back. His tongue moves into my navel, starting a small, nice rhythm. 

"Yeah...maybe we should fuck the rabbit..." 

I'm faltering. 

**XXX**  
(Mulder's POV) 

It seemed as if Krycek was trying to be honest with me. I was wondering if he meant it when he said that he was open to the possibilities of adjusting to me and being what I need him to be, as he pulled me back down to him, capturing my lips in a slow, tea flavored kiss. I held back a little as I thought about his words, trying hard to ignore his hand stroking my hard cock. It wasn't easy. 

Risk, I decided, is what it all came down to in the end. Life, and everything it entailed, was a gamble. The only reason people get out of bed every morning is that they didn't really believe that anything bad could happen to them. The simple act of breathing wasn't without risk, so why should I be so scared to lay my heart on the line? I knew the reason; I'd die from a broken head, but I'd have to live with a broken heart. What I was beginning to realize, as Krycek pulled me closer, was that if I didn't take any risks I wouldn't make any gains. 

I'd discovered last night that I couldn't close my eyes without seeing his face, and my bed had been such an empty space for too long. I needed someone filling it, not just anyone, him, Alex Krycek. He was confident, horny and well endowed. Except for being a hit-for-hire and a sociopath, he was perfect. Krycek, who made me feel like trying again, like those grey, heavy clouds really could have a silver lining if I was just willing to look for it. 

Having decided to take the chance, I relaxed and let myself sink into the kiss. It was so easy to lose myself in Krycek's taste and textures. Before I knew it, my whole world revolved around the joining of our mouths and the mingling of our breath. The smooth softness of the skin on his back and the inside of his thigh tantalized my fingers, while his firm, skilled hand slowly stroked me closer to orgasm... 

How can I tell him tomorrow all of this without turning myself inside out? 

Here's a sigh to those who love me, and a smile to those who hate; And whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate. 

Floating, I wondered what would Lord Byron say if he was quoted between the death and the doom. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

When I wake up at dawn, Mulder is back in his clothes and over at the fire, trying to rescue some of our food. 

"The weather looks okay", he says without turning around. "It stopped snowing and the sun has come out. You ready to get back on the road?" 

"Would it make a difference...?" 

He looks at me shortly. "Not really." 

"Well, I think I'm ready then." 

"Good." 

"Good." 

He turns back to the rabbit. 

Apparently Mulder did not belong to the category of people who considered a morning of awkwardness is better than a night of loneliness. I should have expected that. But I feel like smacking something. 

**XXX**  
(Krycek's POV) 

I put the bed rolls together while outside in the cold Mulder is in the car working on its heater. Now and then I can hear his swearing, the first words I've heard from him for hours. Mulder is giving me the silent treatment. Not even a grunt to decipher. 

I look up, away, anywhere. The sky is the color of a grainy photograph left too long in the back pocket of your only pair of jeans. Jeans cured to ancient blue and frayed at the knees. One day you reach in, lookin' for a quarter or a hankie, and you come across this photo you've been keeping, but you can't tell what it's a picture of anymore. That's what the sky looks like. A memory condemned to a smear of gray. Somehow the sunlight bleeds through, so I know it ain't yet night. 

I stack the bed rolls beside the door, move outside and stand a few feet beside Mulder, my arms crossed in front of my chest. I can do that for a while, watching him without saying a word. I have a lot of patience. Mulder, however, has not. He stops in the middle of his movement after only a few moments, takes a deep breath and without looking at me, says: 

"What, Krycek?" 

"Just wondering what happened to fuck the rabbit." 

He frowns, than gets out of the car and nearer to me. "What the hell are you talking about?" 

"Remember? Fuck the rabbit. Let's fuck each other instead." I want to make myself believe I'm telling this to get some reaction. Any. 

Again, he frowns, but another, dawning, expression is coming up in his face, and he takes another step towards me. 

"What do you expect me to do, Krycek? Hold your hand? Tell you I love you forever? Make google eyes and give you the moon as a token? My name is not Lucy or Mary, Krycek." 

I know he can see that I'm getting angry, really angry. But he just takes another step to me. 

"And this is not a romantic trip to the woods", he says. 

I stare at him, then finally give him a short nod and a "Whatever." and turn to get back into the cabin. 

"Alex", he says calmly. 

"What?" 

"Would you want me to?" 

I look at him in angry bewilderment, and it's me who is frowning this time. He on the other hand, has a small sly smile on his face. 

"What?" 

"Hold your hand. Make google eyes. The whole program." 

"I don't know," I answer. I pretend I don't give a shit. "Would you do it?" 

"If you ask me very, very nicely." A grin this time. "And if no-one's looking." 

"Fuck you, no one IS looking here!" I throw my arms wide and mock him. 

Laughing, he is back in the car, his legs somewhere outside, and trying to get to the probably broken cables. I want to go inside the cabin to get our things, then decide against it and go over to him. I only stop when I'm standing right beside him, our legs touching. 

"I know you are not Scully or anything near to who she is. And I don't want you to. I don't think we are that different. It's just my paranoia, and I should start trusting you. We...we must think about coming back and joining the Rebels together. Because if I don't stop running from myself, we'll both end up dead soon." 

He straightens up and looks at me for a moment, then, smiling softly, puts his hand on my neck and pulls me down to him. 

I didn't know what to say, and even if I'd had something ready and waiting, my throat had closed around my vocal chords. I couldn't stop staring either; I think I almost expected him to dissolve, like a mirage on the highway. My fingers are tingling, mouth dries. He says JUST what I needed him to say. What They wanted him to say and then do. 

"Nothing that has been before between us, matters. Not anymore." 

The kiss is hot in the cold air of the morning. He kisses me open-mouthed, deep and lingering, and when he pulls away for a moment I want to hold him...I don't want to let go. But instead of following my instinct, I untangle my hand from where I had grabbed his jacket and straighten up again. Freeing him, not me. Mulder nods at me and I nod back. My head feels like bursting, but I can't get a single word past my lips. I did not expect one night of sex with Mulder to turn my world upside down. Or maybe...to turn it right as it should be. 

"Think you can get me the small screwdriver from the trunk? I think I finally found the problem with that damn heater." 

His head is back in the car and he's not really paying attention to me anymore. The thing that he really is interested in right now is the car and getting it back to working properly, just so we won't freeze to death before we get a chance to kill some of Them. 

"Yeah", I answer. "I think I can get you the screwdriver." 

Just give me a second. 

I need to get rid of that tracking device in the trunk. 

/end  
October 2007 

  
 

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Title:   **Thaw**   
Author:  Griva   [email/website]   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **R**  |  **66k**  |  **10/30/07**   
Pairings:  Mulder/Krycek   
Category:  Story, AU (Alternate Universe)   
Summary:  Being on the run you can&#8217;t run from yourself.   
Notes:  Wandering the   
wastelands, reborn (that&#8217;s why Krycek has two arms) and confused, if you like   
the guys that way, read on.   
  
  
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